A Matter of Trust
by ilarual
Summary: In the aftermath of the battle with Blair, Maka reflects.


**Author's Note-** I don't even know, man. Sappy shit ahoy, yeah?

* * *

By the time they get home, Maka kind of wants to bury herself under the purple stripey coverlet that Soul made fun of so much when she first moved in, and not come out for about... oh, a century sounds appropriate. She has no idea how she's supposed to face her peers on Monday.

She had been cocky, she can admit that much. But she had a right to be, didn't she? She had managed to defeat 99 pre-kishin and collect their tainted souls, she had a partner poised to become a death weapon, and if it weren't for _stupid Blair_, she would have already turned Soul into a death scythe. Maka had been all too aware of how close they were these last few weeks, and she'd been very conscious of the fact that, at fifteen, she was one of the youngest meisters in history to bring her weapon to this point. Now, of course, she has to walk into Shibusen tomorrow and face the reality of having all 99 of those hard-won souls confiscated. Back to the very beginning.

Maka suddenly finds herself identifying with the protagonists of a number of Greek tragedies. The bitter aftertaste of hybris, it seems, is to be her just desserts.

The fact that the annoying sexy witch-kitty (the phrase _'literal sex kitten'_ crosses Maka's mind and she files it away for humorous use when she's not so mad and disappointed) stalked them all the way back to the apartment doesn't help her mood any. They managed to keep Blair out, but she's skulking around their locked windows in feline form and yowling piteously; Maka gets the idea that they haven't seen the last of the violet-haired cat and tries to resign herself to this fact.

All things considered, this whole night has been one crashing disaster after another. Sleep, Maka decides, sounds _amazing_. She informs Soul of such, receives an idle jerk of his head in reply, and retreats with her metaphorical tail between her legs.

.

Sleep, it turns out, is a little more difficult to come by than anticipated. She drowses in fits and starts for a couple of hours; she can't turn her brain off.

Once it becomes clear that she needs a distraction if she's going to get any sleep tonight, she drags herself to the kitchen, hoping that maybe eating something will help her drift off. It's a terrible habit she's picked up from Soul.

Speaking of Soul... to her surprise, when she emerges from her bedroom, she finds him still sitting on the couch, elbows perched on his knees and mouth pressed pensively against his interlocked fingers. He doesn't notice her until she asks what he's doing still awake. The sound of her voice seems to startle him. Odd, he's not usually that deep in thought.

He tries to shrug off her question. "Just... thinkin' about stuff."

Forgoing food for the time being, she sits down next to him. "Tonight kinda sucked, didn't it?" Maka will never understand how he manages to make a snort sound so _bitter_.

"I'll say."

"I just don't understand what Blair was doing on the list if she isn't really a witch!"

Soul shrus. It seems like he might have some thoughts on the matter, but he doesn't share. Maka considers asking what the look's for, but decides against it. If it's important, Soul will tell her. That's how their partnership works. They don't share everything (Professor Sid is of the opinion that this disinclination to let each other in is why they still have such trouble establishing resonance) but the really important stuff... they make sure that gets communicated.

Maka lets the silence hang. What else can be said? They- well, _she_ really, Soul had been perfect unless you counted that bonehead move of bursting in on Blair in the bath during their first attempt several nights ago- had royally screwed this one up. The whole mess is just... She sighs and runs a hand through her loose hair.

Blair, she notes absently, is still outside. The cat appears to have fallen asleep against the glass of the living room window, perched on the sill. How does she not fall off when she's asleep like that? Magic?

Maka decides she doesn't care. She's tired, she's disappointed, and she's harboring too much resentment against the magical feline to keep from hoping that whatever she's using to keep herself in place on the narrow ledge fails. It is, after all, a third-floor apartment. Cats may land on their feet, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, right?

Honestly, the whole encounter with Blair was a surprise from start to finish. Mostly unpleasant, but some...

She can't bring herself to risk a glance at Soul. Maka's positive he has absolutely no idea how much his words and actions tonight meant to her. Right from the very beginning she knew that there was something special about him. Even now she's not totally sure what, exactly, that something actually is, but it's there. Maybe it's the fact that, even as cynical and sarcastic as he is, even with as much of a jerk as he can be, there's still something so terribly _innocent_ about him. Soul's got a very gentle heart. She forgets that sometimes because... well, he actually can be a really big jerk when he wants to. Times like tonight, though, she's forcibly reminded of the fact that her partner may not always be _nice_, but he is unfailingly _kind_.

It's a beautiful contrast, rather like a lot of things about her partner, actually.

"Hey," Soul says suddenly, voice low and rumbling in his chest.

Her eyes flick over to him. "What?"

His expression is unusually solemn, garnet eyes fixed pensively somewhere in the vicinity of her left knee. "You... you really believed all that crap I said about wanting to go with Blair, didn't you?"

"Yes." They do not lie to each other.

"Man, I... I'm really sorry, Maka."

"What?"

His posture, always terrible, hunches further. "I mean, I know your dad's a rat bastard, but I guess I just didn't think..." He sighs, inaudible but frustrated.

Maka reaches out a tentative hand and rests it on his knee, attempting to reassure and reaffirm through touch, because she's discovered that Soul responds better to physical affection than "uncool" verbalization. For the record, she doesn't think it's uncool at all, but Soul's weird. Or maybe it's a boy thing? Who knows...

"Soul," she says, voice as slow and thoughtful as the hand that now rests warm against his bony knee, "you shouldn't have to apologize."

"Yeah, but I _should_ have known better. I know that whole... cheating thing... is kind of a sensitive subject for you. I should have come up with something else."

"Like _what?_" she asks incredulously. "We were getting our butts kicked and running out of time."

Soul shrugs. "Still shouldn't've gone there."

Maka steels herself. She isn't sure how to say this, but she feels it needs to be said. He proved himself. He deserves a bit of honesty, right? "Actually, if anything, I should be apologizing to you."

"Huh?"

If anybody asks, she's not admitting that Soul's bewildered expression is adorable. He isn't cute, he isn't cute, he isn't cute! She swallows hard. "I... doubted you. You've never given me any reason to think you would betray me like that, and then I go and paint you with the same brush as my father."

"Maka, I hate to tell you this, but you paint _every_ guy with the same brush as your pervy dad."

"Yeah, but you're not just a guy, you know? You're my partner. How am I supposed to ask you to trust me with your life when I can't even trust you-" She almost says _'with my heart'_ but oh dear Death that's cheesy (and also, where the hell did that even come from, she's not into Soul like that, right?), so she fumbles for the briefest of moments before recovering with: "-not to cheat on me?"

Soul gives her a smile. Not one of those big shit-eating grins or a snarky smirk, but an actual smile. She doesn't see many of those, and she's at least 80% certain that she's the only person who gets to see any at all. Maka saves up those smiles and treasures them, because they're actually really beautiful.

"Like I said, I'm a cool guy," he informs her. His tone is earnest but the traces of a smile lingering around his mouth give the statement a slightly cheeky flavor. "Cheating's not cool at all. You can trust me, Maka."

"Yeah, I know," she says. And the weird thing is, she's always wanted to. It's the first time since she can remember that she's actually wanted to put her faith in a boy. And she just can't shake this feeling that if she's ever going to trust someone, it should be him.

Neither of them would likely be this emotionally open were it not three in the morning, or if they hadn't just been through a lengthy battle, or if it hadn't already been a vulnerable, emotional day as it was. But sometimes days like this came around, and Maka didn't question them when they did. Sharing, she had read, was good for resonance. And okay, maybe they couldn't _technically_ resonate yet- they were so far behind the rest of their class in that area that it was almost laughable- but the theory was still sound. And their _relationship_ had to be sound for resonance to even be possible in the first place. If a little bit of sharing with her usually recalcitrant weapon would help... well...

And she did, after all, trust him. Maybe more than anybody else. Definitely more than her Papa. Definitely more than Black*Star. Probably more than Tsubaki. Possibly at least as much as her mother. Well, time would tell. She was still learning, after all.

She leaned against Soul slightly, their shoulders pressing together more firmly. Tomorrow they would have to go face the music and admit their failure face to face with Lord Death, but right now she could ignore all that and pretend they were just a meister and her almost-a-death-scythe, spending a little quality time together after a tiring mission. It was, she decided, kind of nice. She could get used to it. Trust inspired closeness and closeness required trust, right?

"You're not gonna fall asleep on me, are ya? Because I'm dead tired and I wanna go to bed."

Well, leave it to Soul to interrupt the moment. She pushed against his shoulder playfully. "If you're not gonna be nice, go to sleep, jerk."

"That was the point I was making."

"...shut up."

* * *

**A/N part deux-** if I pretend the ending isn't stupid, will everybody else do the same?


End file.
